Friday, January 20, 2006

I'm indignant. I'm howling with righteous fury. I'm seething with sanctimonious anger. What the bloody hell does the Evil Village think they are doing to my lawn?????

It began with a phone call. Well, sort of. If you check out the archives, back in September we had our water line replaced and upgraded to larger service. The EV (Evil Village) got wind of what we were doing and decidedto replace the water main since we would already had a huge hole in our yard. So they did. They removed the curb to access the water main, and then put a sheet of 4 x6 plywood over the six-foot deep hole. And then we fell off their radar. If you check out Halloween, our yard was extra-scary with the giant PIT OF DEATH.

So, we did what anyone else would do. We called. And called. And called. The second week of November, the hole in the yard was filled with pretty black dirt culled from god knows where, but the curb remained a straight shot down into muck. A piece of the plywood remained, now torn in half so six-inch splintery spikes shot straight up in the air, conceivably to warn passerby that you didn't want to screw with this parkway.

November 15, a call back from the public works dept that the concrete job had been contracted out and it was expected to be finished within two weeks. Uh-huh. I bought it, really I did. Yeah.

More phone tag ensued. November turned into December. Mid-December, and during six inches of snow, the lovely orange and white construction horses that had warned people who parked near our house "Beware! Hazard to your health lieth here! Stay clear!" disappeared one day while we were at work. The spikes and curbhole were hidden beneath six inches of snow.

Hello, lawsuit! I could see it now ... "I parked my Beamer just in front of the house, and my wife stepped out of the vehicle onto the snow where the curb SHOULD have been, and instead fell inside a foot-deep hole, cut her leg on wood spikes, requiring sixteen stitches, and broke her ankle when her foot landed sideways on a bottle of Colt 45!" Would we be liable? Would the EV step up to the plate? Had I had enough of this crap?

Yes.

So I called. And called. And called. Finally, I freaked someone out enough and was assured that the construction horses would be returned by 4pm the next day. No matter what. As for repairing the hole, that would have to wait till the ground was less frozen. I agreed. So we got horses back.

Three weeks later, we were in the middle of a record-setting warm January. And still no action on the yard. I decided to call every hour on the hour. When they realized I wasn't going to go away, I was finally put in touch with a manager person who admitted we had been lost. AGAIN. He assured me that people would be laying concrete and fixing our curb that week. And I believed. What a sucker.

As you can see, we've got a few problems here. Biggest one: I didn't need a new abstract lawn ornament. At least not till I figure out the rest of the landscaping.

They better come back and fix this. They just better. Again with the righteous anger, the seething fury, the raised fist in the air.